1832 -1883 · Modern realism and the birth of new painting

Deep blacks, clear light, ancient references and Parisian life make Manet the decisive painter who opens the way to modernity.

Édouard Manet was born in Paris in 1832. After training in the workshop of Thomas Couture, he copied Spanish, Venetian and Dutch masters at the Louvre, then traveled to Europe. From the 1860s, he confronted this classical culture with contemporary subjects. Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe, refused at the Salon of 1863 and presented at the Salon des Refusés, then Olympia, caused scandal with their pictorial frankness and the direct presence of the models. Manet frequented Baudelaire, Zola, Degas, Monet and Berthe Morisot, but retained a constant ambition: to obtain recognition from the Salon. Portraits, cafés, train stations, gardens, marines and still lifes describe modern Paris with framing abrupt, sonorous blacks and an increasingly free touch. A bar at the Folies-Bergère, completed shortly before his death, condenses spectacle, reflection and solitude. Manet died in Paris in 1883. His corpus includes paintings, pastels, watercolors, drawings and prints. The "Édouard Manet" selection notably compares Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe and Olympia. His reading favors atmosphere.

Manet makes the present impossible to avoid: the painted surface, the model's gaze and the light place us in front of modernity without detour.